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| Members of MBC variety show "Infinite Challenge" and their partner musicians wave to the audience at the end of the "Infinite Challenge Yeongdong Expressway Music Festival," which took place at the resort town of Pyeongchang, Gangwon Province, on Aug. 13. / Courtesy of MB |
By Kwon Ji-youn
It was the best of festivals, it was the worst of festivals.
A series of controversies tainted the fifth music festival hosted by MBC's variety show headliner, "Infinite Challenge," which took place on Aug. 13 and aired Saturday.
Some 40,000 fans gathered at the resort town of Pyeongchang in Gangwon Province, where the Winter Olympics are set to take place in 2018, to relish the two-hour concert featuring each of the show's members paired with musicians including IU, G-Dragon, Taeyang and Park Jin-young, among others.
The performances were impressive. It was obvious how much thought and work the musicians had put into the gig, and all six songs created exclusively for the event were well made, to say the least, and have been sweeping charts since their release on Saturday evening. The episode that aired earlier that day garnered 21.1 percent viewership nationwide, 5.9 percentage points up from the previous week.
But the festival left a great deal to be desired.
It may be time for a return to the basics for the members and producers ― the "challenge" part went missing at this year's Yeongdong Expressway music festival.
The show's trademark biannual festival, when it was first staged in 2007, was not the massive fiesta it has grown into. It took place on a makeshift stage just off the Gangbyeon Expressway, where the six members, who claim to be "below average," created their own songs and, with them, tried to attract passersby. The second in 2009 was of a similar scale.
But in 2011, the members began collaborating with household names in the local music scene, from rapper Psy through Big Bang leader G-Dragon. This was when the "Infinite Challenge Music Festivals" began growing into some of the most anticipated music fetes of the summer, dominating music charts and attracting audiences in the tens of thousands.
From then on, the festivals were less about the challenge and more about meeting growing expectations. This year's partner musicians were all big names in K-pop, and none of the performances were exceptionally moving. Aside from Yu Jae-seok, who worked tirelessly to get his dance down pat, and Jung Jun-ha, who wrote his own rap lyrics, the members were not in for too big a challenge ― the partner musicians did most of the work. In fact, it was more than a challenge for the musicians. Member Park Myung-soo stubbornly demanded IU change their song's genre, while Jung Hyung-don dismissed several songs band Hyukoh had written for him and the festival.
The mess audiences left at Pyeongchang was not desirable, either.
Photographs of the concert scene buried in garbage went viral minutes after the festival came to a successful end on Aug. 13. The next day, the producers of "Infinite Challenge" apologized for the mess and announced they had sent cleaning services to pick up the rubbish. It was a bitter end to a thrilling night.
Another controversy included member HaHa and partner Zion. T revealing the latter's phone number in their song, inconveniencing others with similar numbers.
On the whole, the festival, one of "Infinite Challenge's" five big projects this year, was "great boast and small roast," and not what viewers are used to seeing on one of MBC's oldest, most popular and most sensible entertainment shows.
For 2017, the members and producers may want to keep in mind that they are not obliged to meet viewers' ever-growing expectations, which may have resulted in a splashy but meager feast this year.
